The Elgin Amphora is a large

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

neck-handled amphora made from fired clay in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

around 760 to 750 BC. The ceramic vessel may have been used to hold wine at a funeral feast, and then entombed with the cremated remains of the deceased. Fragments have survived, decorated in the Late Geometric style, and attributed to an unknown artist given the ''

Notname In art history, a ''Notname'' (, "necessity-name" or "contingency-name") is an invented name given to an artist whose identity has been lost. The practice arose from the need to give such artists and their typically untitled, or generically title ...

'' of "the

Dipylon Master The Dipylon Master was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek vase painter who was active from around 760–750 BC. He worked in Athens, where he and his workshop produced large funerary vessels for those interred in the Dipylon Gate cemetery, whence h ...

", one of the earliest individually identifiable Greek artists. The fragments have been restored to reconstruct a single but incomplete vessel, {{convert, 67, cm high, which is now displayed at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in London. The amphora stands on a rim foot. The outer surface of its ovoid body is decorated with bands of geometric patterns, including repeated lozenges in a tapestry design around the widest part of the amphora, rows of triangles, and a chequered pattern on its shoulders. The tall cylindrical neck bears a double

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ba ...

, and a frieze of water birds just below the rim. The strap handles are decorated with dotted serpents. Fragments of the amphora were excavated in Athens by

Giovanni Battista Lusieri Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1755–1821) was an Italian landscape painter from Naples. He was court painter to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies before working for Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and becoming involved in the removal and shipping of ...

in 1804–6. The exact find location is not known, but it was probably somewhere between the Mouseion Hill and the River Ilisos. It was acquired by

Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine (; 20 July 176614 November 1841) was a British nobleman, soldier, politician and diplomat, known primarily for the controversial procurement of marble sculptures (known as the Elgin Ma ...

. His descendants sold it to John Hewett before the 1950s, and it was then acquired by Hon Robert Erskine, the son of

John Erskine, Lord Erskine John Francis Ashley Erskine, Lord Erskine GCSI, GCIE (12 April 1895 – 3 May 1953) was a British soldier, Conservative Party politician and administrator who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Weston-super-Mare and Brighton. Erskine also ...

. A fragment was sold at

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

in 1994, and later reunited with the other fragments which were bought privately. It was loaned to the British Museum, and then acquired by the British Museum in 2004 from the Trustees of the Stanford Place Collection, using £40,000 provided by

The Art Fund Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as ...

, and funds from the

Wolfson Foundation The Wolfson Foundation is a charity that awards grants to support excellence in the fields of science and medicine, health, education and the arts and humanities. Overview The endowment of the Wolfson Foundation is currently some £800 million, ...

, Alexander Talbot Rice, British Museum Friends, the Caryatid Fund, and the

Society of Dilettanti The Society of Dilettanti (founded 1734) is a British society of noblemen and scholars that sponsors the study of ancient Greek and Roman art, and the creation of new work in the style. History Though the exact date is unknown, the Society is b ...

Charitable Trust

References

The Elgin Amphora
British Museum
Elgin Amphora by Dipylon Workshop, Athens
Art Fund
Elgin Amphora
Google Arts & Culture 8th-century BC works 1804 archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in Greece Amphorae Iron Age Greek art Ancient Greek and Roman objects in the British Museum Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin